Spider-Man’s 50th Birthday Present: A Sidekick

By Seb Patrick, Wired UK

It’s taken him half a century, but Spider-Man has finally joined his fellow comic book luminaries Batman, Captain America and — uh — Green Arrow in obtaining the most prized of superhero status symbols: a kid sidekick.

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In upcoming issues of his main ongoing series The Amazing Spider-Man, Marvel’s famous webslinger will encounter a teenager named Andy Maguire, who gains superpowers and takes on the superhero identity of Alpha.

In a twist on the classic Spidey origin story — itself set to be retold on cinema screens in July 2012 in Marc Webb’s The Amazing Spider-Man film — the accident that gives Andy his powers takes place on a school field trip to a science lab, and is the inadvertent result of an experiment by none other than Spider-Man’s alter ego, Peter Parker.

“It’s interesting because it flips the paradigm,” Marvel’s editor-in-chief Axel Alonso told Fox News. “Teen hero Spider-Man is now responsible for this teen hero sidekick. He’s responsible because one of his inventions caused this kid to get his powers. He feels he has a responsibility to make sure this kid walks the right path, which won’t prove easy.” Alpha, however, is described as being “brash” and “unpredictable,” which is likely to make for a less-than-harmonious partnership between the pair. (Get a preview in the gallery above.)

Spider-Man has paired up with assorted other Marvel heroes in the past — he was the lead character in almost every issue of the classic Marvel Team-Up series between 1972 and 1985 — and has been a member of teams including the Avengers and more recently the Fantastic Four. However, he’s never before joined in with that strange, and uniquely comic book, phenomenon of employing a youngster such as Dick “Robin” Grayson or James “Bucky” Barnes to fight crime alongside him.

Maguire — who just happens to share the surname of one silver-screen Spider-Man and the first name of another — will make his first appearance in August’s Amazing Spider-Man, written by Dan Slott and drawn by Humberto Ramos. The story is one of a number of special events designed by Marvel to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the character’s first appearance in Amazing Fantasy No. 15 in August 1962 — which also include the latest movie, and Brian Michael Bendis’ Spider-Men crossover miniseries.

“What we’re trying to do with the 50th anniversary of Spider-Man is to play with the original clay of the book,” says Steve Wacker, the comic’s editor. “When Spider-Man was first created in the 1960s, there was no other superhero like him. Pop culture had never really taken teenagers into account. What Stan [Lee] and Steve [Ditko] did was sing to their angst, and we’re trying to sort of modernize that.”